


To Lie Down in Green Pastures

by Iritvea



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, NSFW, Pricefield here too, Will basically be both, marshfield
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 12:07:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20063767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iritvea/pseuds/Iritvea
Summary: Kate has Max over to her dorm for a "movie night," which takes an unexpected turn. Spiritual sequel to "Leadeth Me By the Still Waters" but should stand on its own.





	To Lie Down in Green Pastures

“It must be a hundred fucking degrees in here!” came the mostly muffled voice of Victoria Chase through Kate’s dorm room wall. Kate lifted her gaze from her essay and stared blankly at the drawings and personal artifacts pinned to the back of her desk’s hutch, tiredly allowing herself to listen in on the conversation next door.

“Calm down, Victoria,” Kate heard Courtney say.

Victoria continued, undaunted, “Seriously, did the A/C break or something? If I sweat any more I’m going to ruin this blouse...”

Kate frowned and eyed her phone, which sat at the edge of her desk, aside from her essay papers and the book she’d been referencing. She reached out and plucked it from where it sat, unlocking the screen with a quick swipe of her finger, and navigated to the local weather app. Once it loaded, she grimaced at the temperature-- 99 degrees. Victoria had been close.

Kate set the phone down and turned to survey her room. It was, she realized, quite hot inside, but it didn’t seem to be to the level that Victoria was describing. Nevertheless, Kate could feel a misting of sweat building just under the collar of her blouse and in a speckle around her sternum, approximately where the crucifix from her necklace currently came to rest. She supposed the air conditioning in the old dorm building probably couldn’t keep up with the strange heatwave they’d been experiencing lately in Arcadia Bay.

She eyed the essay on her desk, estimating it to be about halfway complete. Under any other circumstance like this, she might have abandoned the assignment in favor of a break, to finish it later in the evening, but this time she had reason to keep working. She smiled to herself and hummed a little, remembering that tonight she had a movie night planned with Max. Though a routine occurrence by now, Kate still looked forward to the nights where they would rent old films from the library and watch them together in the dorms. Tonight was Kate’s turn to choose the movie, and she’d made a point of going to the library earlier to grab a copy of _The Wizard of Oz_.

Thinking about the evening ahead, Kate felt a little thread of warmth in her face that she knew by now she couldn’t attribute to the heat in the room. She had known Max Caulfield for a while, and since early on in their friendship, Kate had thought there to be something special about her. She had hesitated, however, to give that something a name, instead feigning a certain amount of ignorance inwardly when she was faced with mental images of herself and Max in… close physical proximity.

She bit her lip, staring down at the floor by her desk chair. She didn’t dare tell anyone about how she’d come to view Max. For one thing, the angry reactions she’d gotten from her abstinence campaign had left her sure that her classmates would line up to skewer her for being hypocritical rather than show her any kind of acceptance. She wasn’t, if she was perfectly honest, sure she deserved such acceptance anyway, crave it though she might. She walked a different path-- or at least, she was supposed to. Conflicting thoughts about her own feelings danced around in her head, laced with the words of others who, depending on the source, either condemned or offered words of encouragement for what she had been quietly going through since early September-- It was natural, it was shameful, it was something to be nurtured, something to be controlled, it was proof that she was evil, it was proof that she was human…

“Oh my GOD,” she heard Victoria groan, “Feel this… there’s nothing coming out!”

Kate sat up and glanced wearily at the side wall. She guessed from the fact that this latest utterance had come from much higher up, that Victoria was standing on something to reach one of the air vents in her room. This was confirmed shortly as Kate heard some rustling on the other side of the wall, followed by a chorus of voices from Taylor and Courtney, which accelerated into slight whines when it became apparent that, indeed, no air whatsoever was coming out of the vent.

Kate nearly dropped the phone in her hand when it suddenly buzzed to life. The preview image on the lock screen told her she had a text from Juliet, which she thought odd. With a quick swipe-to-unlock, Kate was greeted with what turned out to be a massive group text to all the girls in the dorm.

**Hi all. BW just confirmed A/C is out in girls dorm. Bad timing! **

Kate winced slightly, hearing the chorus of groans from next door as Victoria, Taylor and Courtney sounded to have received the same text. She watched as the replies poured in under the first text for a few minutes, most expressing a general sentiment of outrage, before she shut the phone off and set it aside. The last text had read “maybe we should invade the boys’ dorms?” with a laughing face.

Tired of the thoughts that she knew would come back to plague her if she left herself to them, Kate instead decided to pour herself into the essay, and an hour later, had a fully completed rough draft stacked neatly in front of her. During this time, she was dimly aware of the sounds from next door fading away, which played no small part in making it easier to concentrate, and also of the room getting warmer and warmer as time passed, which made concentrating on 18th century literature somewhat harder. The only fan Kate owned was turned on mid-stream and pointed at Alice’s cage to keep her cool, while Kate toiled away at her desk.

By the time Kate was done making edits to her first page, she was very cognicsent of the lack of air in the room. She could feel the perspiration on her forehead, under her collar, on her chest, and underneath the teased hair that formed her typical hairstyle. She leaned back in her chair and fanned herself with a pamphlet from last week’s church service, squinting at the rays of sun which poked through the blinds.

Her phone buzzed to life again.

Kate thought to ignore it initially, but when she saw that it was Max, her heart sprang to life. She reached out and unlocked the phone to find Max casually joking about the “crazy heat wave” and asking if they were still on for the movie night. Kate tried to confirm without too much haste, secretly nursing a feeling of joy inside at the thought of seeing Max in less than an hour. With that text sent, and further confirmation received on Max’s part, Kate rose from her chair and made a grab for her shower bag, reasoning that she had just enough time to get cleaned up before Max arrived at her dorm.

Once out in the hall, Kate was somewhat surprised to find it relatively deserted. There were signs of some sort of previous chaos, including crushed soda cans and toilet paper on the floor. On nearly every slate was written some comment about the heat, and when Kate turned around to lock her door, she sighed, finding the words “Are we in HELL?” scrawled across her own slate in bleeding pink marker.

She was looking for a way to erase it, when she heard a door open at the end of the hall. She turned and looked to see whose room had opened, just in time to see Dana stride out from around the corner, soaking wet and clad only in a tanktop and pair of underwear.

Kate froze.

“Hey Kate!” Dana called before Kate could do anything else, “You coming to the pool party?”

Kate stared for what felt like a second too long at Dana’s white tanktop, which was sopping wet enough to cling to her skin and be nearly completely see-through. Streams of water ran down her body from her soaked garments, pooling at her feet on the carpet.

“I-I’m sorry…” Kate managed. “What party?”

Dana leaned to the side and began fingercombing a tangle from her hair, all the while beaming, “Oh sorry, I thought maybe somebody came to get you. It’s kind of an impromptu thing- you know, beat the heat?”

Kate nodded, slowly, more to show she was following the concept than anything else, but Dana seemed to take it as some sort of confirmation. Before Kate knew what was happening, Dana had run up, grabbed her by the arm, and was leading her off down the hall.

They arrived just inside the threshold of the shower rooms, and Kate jerked to an involuntary halt. It seemed as though every girl on campus had congregated in the shower room and transformed it into a makeshift pool party by way of importing two inflatable wading pools, which had been set in the middle of the open area. A large garden hose was currently hooked up to the sink, being used by Brooke to fill the wading pool at the far end of the room. Upon setting foot in the room, Kate was only too aware of multiple pairs of eyes on her, and the fact that she seemed to be the only girl in the room not in her underwear.

“Hey Kate,” crooned Victoria without missing a beat, “Glad you could join us.”

Kate’s legs refused to move either backwards or forwards as she took in the scene before her. Every other girl was shuffling around the room wearing some outfit Kate would have considered more than a little revealing. Some of the girls, like Dana, were already soaked, and Kate guessed it was from lounging in the other full wading pool, like some of the girls were doing now. The effect was startling to Kate, who had scarcely seen anyone, let alone her classmates, in this great a number, in this sort of state of undress. Kate looked for a friendly face to help ground her, and found none – she guessed neither Stella, Alyssa, nor Max had been invited to this gathering.

“If you’re going to stay, like, you might want to _change_,” Courtney emphasized, raising an eyebrow, and Kate was aware of the head-to-toe scanning glance that went over Kate’s whole body with this.

Kate suddenly felt more than a little hot inside her collared blouse and skirt.

Dana reached out and patted Kate on the shoulder, “Don’t listen to them, Kate. You can wear whatever you want.” She turned to the group in the wading pool, “Make some room, guys!”

“Oh no…” Kate finally managed to squeak out as she backed away, “I really shouldn’t stay.”

Dana turned back and fixed Kate with a concerned look, “Are you sure?”

“Oh come on, Dana,” Victoria interjected, “Did you really think little miss pious was going to strip down and join us?”

Kate could feel her face heating up at this remark. The words ‘strip down’ played almost in a chorus in her head. She could feel her breathing go shallow, and her heart beat faster.

“Stop it, Victoria,” Dana growled.

“I’m not doing anything,” Victoria shot back, rolling her eyes. She approached the half-empty wading pool, “Jesus, Brooke, could you fill that thing any slower?”

Instead of responding, Brooke cast Victoria an annoyed glance and lifted the hose from the water. Before Victoria could react, she pressed her thumb down on the water stream, turning it into a jet that hit Victoria square in the chest and splattered onto Courtney and Taylor beside her. All three let out a yelp and the girls around them backed away. Kate watched in a kind of silent horror as the water dripped down all over Victoria’s body, soaking her bralette and causing it to stick to her skin.

Kate forced her gaze to an empty tile on the floor, feeling a bit like she was going to be sick. She backed further away from the scene, desperately patting around behind her to find the doorway. As she felt her fingertips brush the threshold, she looked up to see a sopping Victoria step into the far wading pool with a grin that was sort of a sneer and splash Brooke back.

Before anyone could look her way, Kate bolted from the room and ran all the way back to her dorm. She felt her face heating up in the seconds before she got her door unlocked, and lunged for the inside as soon as she could get the door open. She dropped her shower bag on the floor on her way over to the futon, where she collapsed with her hands cupped around her mouth.

She didn’t like the thoughts that came pouring in one by one, unbidden. She physically shook her head to rid herself of the fleshly images of her classmates, which worked for about three seconds before they came back, this time stronger and more vibrant. Some disobedient part of her tried to toy with the images, taunting her with various ‘what ifs’ that would have produced a shocked exclamation from Kate if a real person had happened to suggest them in her presence, and threatened to introduce a much more risque version of that which she had just seen.

Kate groaned. Whenever this happened, she always felt like she was just applying pressure to one side of a dam. On the other side of this wall she had built inside herself were things she desperately feared. When a scantily-clad image of Victoria in a more seductive pose pushed its way through, Kate felt a wave of nausea accompanying the guilt, pain, and a soundbyte of her mother’s various assertions that Satan had a firm hold on Kate in particular.

Kate looked around the empty room. It was very hot, and the heat wasn’t helping with any of these feelings. She tried to force her focus back onto the original problem she’d set out to solve when she’d left her room – she’d meant to shower before Max came over.

Max.

Kate’s eyes widened, and she froze in the middle of getting up. Her brain filled with fog, no-- steam- for in this case, a bubbling spring of lust painted an unfortunately beautiful picture of her and Max closely entwined in a scene Kate was too busy rejecting to realize was the girls’ dorm showers.

“No! Stop it!” Kate called out forcefully, storming across the room. She shook her head, doing her best to swat the image away like one might a fly. These images, particularly of Max, were nothing new, but Kate had never had an image of Max come through so clearly before. To some degree, she had more or less forbidden it. While the other girls had been nasty enough to her to produce a knee-jerk feeling of disgust that made it easy to dismiss when her brain tried to conjure up images of them, Max posed a different problem to Kate. Max wasn’t nasty – Max was sweet, kind, funny, honest, and loyal. Max was Kate’s friend. Max was sacred.

Kate took a long breath in and exhaled to a conscious count of three. She forced her mind back to the task of showering, yet again. She was still perspiring in her clothes and if she couldn’t shower thanks to, well, _that_, then she would need to do something else. The antiperspirant she’d applied early in the morning was likely to wear off soon, if it hadn’t already, and the last thing she wanted to do was smell, in any capacity, around Max.

With a quick tug at each sleeve and a roll of the shoulders, her cardigan found its way from her body to the laundry hamper. She tore open the top drawer of her dresser where her deodorant sat nestled in a little caddy she’d put together specifically for the purpose of organizing all grooming supplies, and popped open the top three buttons of her blouse so she could quickly reapply the compound to her underarms, before replacing it back where it belonged. She patted her hair nervously, scanning the room for a solution to the sweat she could feel building underneath it. She really would have liked to have had the opportunity to wash her hair, and she wasn’t sure what to do instead. She eyed the top of her desk where her makeup brushes sat next to a large bottle of perfume she’d gotten as a birthday gift from a relative. The bottle had enjoyed a purely decorative purpose up until now, as Kate wasn’t especially fond of the scent, but it would have to do. She strode to the dresser, picked up the large, art-deco-ish bottle, and after a second of hesitation, puffed a liberal cloud of fragrance in to the air, which she then held her breath and walked through.

She felt a little gross doing all of this, as she would have much preferred a proper shower. However, the thought of trying her luck in the dorm showers with the party still likely going on made her blood run cold. She could just imagine how well it would go if she tried to just walk by the other girls and shower like they weren’t even there. No thank you.

She spent the next ten or so minutes tidying up her dorm room. In her case, as someone who was naturally neat to begin with, this meant stowing a few more things that weren’t really out of place, re-stacking her notebooks, taking down a few pictures she’d drawn that she now thought weren’t her best, and straightening her bedspread until it nearly looked like it had been ironed.

She was debating going back to her assignment from earlier, when knock at the door made her heart jump. She rushed to the peephole and saw, to her quiet delight, Max Caulfield shuffling around in front of the door with a totebag slung over her shoulder.

Kate didn’t wait for Max to say anything, and quickly yanked open the door.

Max’s entire face lit up upon seeing her, and the broad grin that accompanied her soft “Hey Kate,” made Kate want to melt.

“Hey Max, come on in,” said Kate, gesturing in the direction of the futon. She sidestepped to let Max in the door, but was surprised when Max paused, looked directly at her, and initiated a warm hug that had the nuances of one that was as though the two hadn’t seen eachother in a few months, let alone yesterday in class. When she backed away, there was a flicker of sadness on her face that Kate debated asking about, but it vanished so quickly Kate thought she would sound rude for drawing attention to it.

“Thanks for having me over,” said Max, making her way to the futon, as Kate closed the door.

Kate laughed warmly, “It’s my turn, Max.”

Max grinned, “I know, I just… really appreciate it.”

Kate nodded, noting that something about Max’s behavior seemed off, but she decided not to pry.

“Ready for the Wizard of Oz?”

Max suddenly looked up at Kate, face paling. Before Kate could ask what was wrong, she bolted from the couch and began sputtering apologies.

“Oh no! I knew I forgot something! I’m so sorry, Kate… I’ll go get it from the library right now.”

Kate’s heart sank as she watched Max fumble for her totebag and then race for the door.

“I promise I’ll be right back!”

“Max, I already checked it out...”

Max halted about six inches from the door and turned back around slowly with a look of confusion on her face that gradually faded into one of relief.

“You did?” She laughed nervously, “Um, thank you… Sorry, I thought it was my turn to get the movie and I... spaced it.”

Kate shook her head, “We agreed back in October that the host checks out the movie… Max, are you feeling all-right?”

Kate didn’t have to know what faking a smile looked like from experience to know that that was exactly what Max did next. “Of course!” Max tried, only for her face to slowly fall when it was clear Kate didn’t buy it. “I mean, I’ve just had a lot going on. Sorry to be a space cadet.”

Kate frowned and moved towards the futon, “You’re not a space cadet, Max.” She gently sat down next to Max. “Something’s bothering you. I can tell.”

“Well, yeah...” Max admitted. Her posture deflated a bit at this, though for a split-second it also looked like she was going to propose something cheerful. A range of emotions played on her faces as she cycled through poses, looking back and forth between Kate, various objects in the room, and the floor. This went on for far longer than Kate was prepared to deal with, and after a few instances where it looked like Max might be about to let Kate in on whatever was going on, then changed her mind, Max finally hung her head and sighed.

As a few more seconds went by and Max didn’t move from that position, a thought occurred to Kate, almost out of nowhere. She bit her lip.

“Is it… Is it _Chloe_?” Kate very carefully tried, knowing full-well that this had been a very emotional issue for Max within the weeks following Chloe Price’s death. Even Victoria had picked up on it and left Max alone. Kate wasn’t sure what kind of a reaction she’d get from Max for having brought it up now, but the one she did get surprised her.

Max was clearly shocked, at first, and recoiled a bit from Kate on the sofa. Then, she softened, gradually but surely, and a very warm smile crossed her features that told Kate she had gotten very close to whatever it was. Finally, a wave of pensive sadness washed over Max’s countenance, followed by a strange burst of hope that entered her eyes as she finally spoke.

“If you had the power to stop people from dying, would you?”

Deep sympathy pains struck Kate as she processed the meaning of the question. “Oh Max...” she said softly.

Max shifted on the couch. She cleared her throat, “I mean, a-as an ethical question. Is there anything wrong with it?”

Kate frowned, “Are you asking me as a Christian?”

“Maybe. Or, as a person. I mean, sometimes I’m curious about God, but… I… I don’t know.”

Kate watched Max idly pluck at the fabric of her jeans, seemingly unable to make eye contact anymore.

Kate swallowed, “I… I don’t know. It’s a hypothetical question… one school of thought would say it’s interfering in God’s will, another would say the powers are part of his will.”

Max looked up, “What would you say?”

Kate could feel herself trembling in spite of herself as she carefully considered and answered, “I would say that, if somebody had that kind of power, they must have been given it for a reason, and using it to save a person’s life doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me.”

She winced inwardly, knowing that every time she’d said something that implied ‘purpose’ behind anything to someone, she’d been met with a chorus of anger that she didn’t quite understand. However, Max stared at her, not with anger, but with a different sort of look that Kate wasn’t sure she’d seen before.

“Thank you, Kate,” Max said finally.

Kate didn’t feel like she’d done anything, but nodded. She was prepared to offer that they cancel the movie night so Max could properly grieve, when Max turned to her and enveloped her in a firm hug.

“I love you,” Max whispered in her ear.

Kate’s eyes widened. The way Max had said it, Kate knew exactly what she meant, but still a part of Kate’s brain tried feverishly to deny it. She felt frozen in place, and this must have translated to her posture, because in the next second, Max had pulled out of the hug and was furiously backpedaling with a hand cupped to the side of Kate’s face.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… I mean… you don’t have to say it back, okay? I promise. I just said it because I meant it… because I was thinking about it, and...”

“Max?” Kate echoed. She was suddenly very aware of every sensation in her body, from the shaking of her legs to the sweat pooling in spots under her blouse, and the cooler tinge of the crucifix against her skin which told her the top buttons of her blouse were still open.

Max’s head fell and she sighed, “I’m sorry, Kate. I know it’s not easy for you, I mean, with your family and all… but I did want you to know, because, I’ve learned that you need to tell everyone in your life how you feel about them while you can...”

Kate stared.

“Because one day you might not be able to do it,” Max concluded solemnly but forcefully, and Kate knew exactly what she meant.

“Oh Max...” Kate could feel her face getting hot, “I...” She knew if she said it back it would be true, and she wanted nothing more, but fear kept her from getting the words out.

Max stared for a beat, then a sweet, understanding smile crept across her face.

“It’s okay,” she said, “You don’t have to say it back.”

Kate smiled, a warmth spreading inside her from feeling understood, feeling as though an incredible burden had just been lifted from her without her saying a word.

“I should go,” Max said softly. She turned to get up and Kate, without realizing what she was doing, grabbed her arm.

“No, Max, please...” she started. Now it was her turn to feel tears in her eyes, “I’ve wanted to tell you...”

“It’s okay, Kate.”

“No, it isn’t…” Kate insisted, voice cracking. “I feel like I’ve been living a lie.”

Max’s face clouded with sympathy at that, “Oh, Kate...”

Kate released Max’s hand and as she blinked, could feel a couple of tears fall from her lashes. “You’re right, you know...” she said softly. “Someday we might not have a chance...”

Max stared for a few seconds, then before Kate could fully process what was happening, Max placed herself on the couch beside her, albeit this time on her knees, and brought a hand up to cup Kate’s chin.

“Then, is it okay if… I kiss you right now?”

Kate blinked, then nodded, slowly. Max smiled, and Kate watched for a moment as Max tilted her head and leaned in, getting closer and closer, before instinct told Kate to close her eyes.

Their lips met, and it was the most wonderful thing Kate could ever imagine. Nothing that had entered her mind before could have prepared her for how good kissing Max felt. Her soft lips pressed gently into Kate’s, sending sparks of sorts through Kate’s body. Had she the words to describe them, she would have described them as going directly into her heart.

Max pulled back to ask in a whisper, “How was that?”

Kate could only smile and let out a meek giggle in response.

“I liked it, too.”


End file.
